


The Beast Within 14/?

by iantosgal (orphan_account)



Series: The Beast Within [14]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Timelines, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-13
Updated: 2013-03-13
Packaged: 2017-12-05 05:41:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/719512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/iantosgal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack is back from his time with the Doctor and his team are keeping something from him, but what? Set after KKBB.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Beast Within 14/?

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally a story I posted a couple of years back on my LJ. My Torchwood muse buggered off and the story died. A couple of days ago, I found it, re-read it and the muse was reawakened!! So I've written a couple more chapters and just wanted to repost this over here on my new profile! So sorry for the spam of chapters, if anyone remembers it from LJ then I'm sorry for the long wait and for anyone that reads, I hope you enjoy it!!!

“What the…”

Ianto reached over and gently shook Gwen’s shoulder. Her reaction was surprisingly quick. She sat bolt up right and looked around her on confusion.

“How did I get here?”

“I don’t know. Owen?” Ianto flicked the other man on the ear, earning him a startled yelp, followed by a groan. Gwen woke Tosh up more gently and the Japanese woman looked at her in confusion.

“When did you get back?”

“What the fuck is going on?” Owen demanded.

“I don’t know I just woke up here.”

Ianto get to his feet and left the room, making his way to his computer and logging into the CCTV feeds. It had been wiped.

“Jesus…”

Ianto turned to look at Owen, hearing the shock in his voice.

“What?”

Owen now looked worried.

“Owen?”

“We’ve lost two days.”

“Lost? Two days have been erased from our memories you mean,” Gwen said, eyes wide.

But Owen kept looking at Ianto, watching the younger man’s eyes widen in horror, his face fall, his hands clench against the back of his chair.

“Yesterday was the full moon,” Owen said quietly.

The girls eyes immediately swung to Ianto.

“Oh, God,” Tosh gasped. “Check the CCTV.”

“Wiped.” Ianto’s voice was hoarse.

“All off it?”

“For the last two days, every camera has been wiped…what did I do?”

*~*~*~*

They all sat blankly around the conference table.

Owen suddenly leaned forward and broke the tense silence.

“Ianto didn’t do anything. I know he didn’t. Come on mate, your control has gotten almost perfect.”

“Yeah, Owen, exactly. Almost perfect.” Ianto got to his feet and began to pace. “Maybe, maybe full moon, we decided we would go without the cage like we’ve been talking about or maybe I got out. Maybe I killed someone.”

“That doesn’t explain the retcon. There is definitely retcon in our system. If you wanted us to forget, you might dose us, but you’d keep the memory yourself. You know you’d figure it out if not, so you’d let yourself remember. Right? Or you’d give the game away.”

“I get what you’re saying, I think…but I can’t see another explanation.”

“Unless it wasn’t you who administered the retcon.”

All eyes turned to Jack as he leant forward in his seat.

“Maybe it was me. I would want you to forget. You have enough nightmares.” Ianto looked away, looked down as if he was ashamed. “I wouldn’t want you to add to them.”

There was a silence then that seemed to stretch forever as they watched Ianto. He barely moved, hands on his hips, eyes downcast. Eventually he looked up at them, blue eyes filled with emotion that made all their hearts ache.

“I have to know. I have to.”

Jack nodded sadly.

“Ok, check police reports for yesterday. Find out if there have been any deaths caused by a big animal.”

They nodded and rose as one, following Ianto out of the room. Jack hesitated for a moment before sighing and following them out. Ianto was right. They had to know.

*~*~*~*

It didn’t take long.

“Oh no.” Gwen’s voice was choked and quiet, tears brimming in her eyes even as the others turned to face her.

“You’ve got something,” Ianto said. It wasn’t a question, merely a statement.

Gwen turned her screen so they could all read it.

The front page of a newspaper told of a savage death in Bute Park in harsh, black print that seemed to sear onto Ianto’s eyes. A young man, Paul Southgate, only just 22. He scanned the rest of the article and registered that they were looking for a large animal, perhaps a wolf. People were panicked, wondering where this terrifying animal had come from. Ianto felt sick.

He turned away from the others, walked away from them and the article, putting a distance between him and them. A monster and the people who saved the Earth. He felt hot tears in his eyes and blinked, but that only sent them sliding down his face.

He’d let himself become complacent, reckless. He should have done better, trained more…he should have done something.

He turned back to face them, saw the compassion and the sadness in their faces, their eyes.

“Don’t.” He shook his head and gritted his teeth, trying to stop the falling tears. “I killed him.” He shook his head again, screwing up his eyes before wiping a hand roughly across his face. “I don’t deserve your sympathy. He does, his family does.”

Oh God, it was Alice all over again. He’d killed someone else’s baby. It was too much. He left and they let him.

*~*~*~*

Ianto had been gone for hours. He wasn’t answering his mobile and CCTV around his usual haunts hadn’t picked him up.

Jack was pacing, Gwen was searching the CCTV again, Tosh was looking at CCTV around Bute Park from the night of the full moon, trying to catch a glimpse of the wolf, whilst Owen tried Ianto’s mobile. Again.

“Ianto, mate, it’s Owen. Again. Look, we’re all really worried about you. Just come back yeah. We can sort this out. We always do. Just, come back to the Hub or at least phone me.” Owen cut the call. “I left another message,” he announced to his worried friends.

“How many is that now?” Tosh asked.

“About twelve,” beautiful, thick, male Welsh vows announced.

They all spun round to find Ianto stood soaking wet from the rain poring down outside. Jack rushed forward and pulled the Welshman into his arms. Ianto was stiff in his embrace for a few moments before he relaxed and let his arms wind around Jack’s waist.

“Don’t you ever do that to me again,” Jack whispered into his ear.

Ianto nodded and bit his lip.

Finally they pulled away.

Jack saw the hurt in Ianto’s eyes, the horror, the guilt, and he wished that he could wash it all away. But Ianto would never let him do that.

He would keep all that pain and use it to make sure he never failed again, to fuel him as he worked harder to gain full control over the wolf.

So Jack stepped away and let Ianto have his space. For now.

But he would not lose the younger man, not again. He would pull him back from the brink when his despair, his anguish and guilt, pushed him there. He would let Ianto deal with it as he wished, but if it looked, even for a second, like Ianto would fail, would give up and Jack would lose him…

The Master himself couldn’t keep Jack from pulling Ianto back, from saving him. Jack would rather die a thousand times at The Master’s hands than lose Ianto.

*~*~*~*

Ianto was quiet and withdrawn for the rest of the day. He spent a lot of time in the gym and insisted he stay behind when the team responded to an alert.

His confidence was shot. All the obstacles they had overcome, all the hard work and the things they had achieved, it had all been destroyed, made pointless in one horrifying act.

He couldn’t do it anymore.

He often thought maybe it would be better to end it all, protect the rest of the world from him. It was the logical thing to do. He was dangerous, had killed people and would clearly kill again. It wasn’t just that. If he killed himself, he could end all this pain, the fear that he was going to hurt someone else. The dreams would stop. He would be at peace.

But he was a coward. He couldn’t do it. He’d tried once.

Just after Alice he’d put a gun to his head but he couldn’t pull the trigger. He’d slid down onto his kitchen floor, let the gun fall and cried until he had no more tears and his body hurt. He had never told the others and he never would.

He couldn’t pull the trigger then and he wouldn’t be able to now. Even if he wanted it all to end, Ianto Jones did not really want to die. He wanted to stay with Jack for as long as he could, even if it meant going through all this shit. But he wouldn’t hurt anyone else. This time he’d make sure of it.

*~*~*~*

Jack worries about Ianto that night. He doesn’t eat and stares blankly at the TV, not really watching it. Jack finally manages to coax him to bed and holds him in his arms until he eventually drifts off to sleep. He gently strokes his fingers through the younger man’s hair and watches, waiting for the nightmares to begin.

Within an hour, Ianto’s brow creases but he doesn’t thrash, he doesn’t struggle. His eyes dart about beneath his lids and then he starts once before his eyes slide open and he looks straight at Jack, confusion in his eyes.

“Ianto?”

Ianto is out of the bed before the word has even fully left Jack’s lips and is struggling into his jeans.

“Ianto? What’s going on?” Jack said, slipping out of the bed and beginning to dress, sensing the urgency in Ianto’s movements.

“Who’s Adam?”

The question drew Jack up short and he looked over at his lover who was pulling a t-shirt over his head.

“Who?”

“Adam.”

“I don’t know anyone called Adam. Should I?”

“I don’t know. Floppy ginger hair, kinda tubby.”

Jack shook his head.

“Doesn’t ring a bell. Where is this all coming from?”

“I just…”

“Saw him in your dream?” Jack finished for him.

Ianto nodded and grabbed his trainers, pulling them on and heading for the door.

Jack grabbed his shoes, hopping into them as he chased after Ianto.

“It was just a dream. I don’t understand.”

“It wasn’t just a dream. I can’t explain it just trust me.”

Ianto grabbed the car keys.

“Where are we going? Ianto!” Jack grabbed Ianto’s arm and pulled him round the face him. “What the fuck is going on?”

“I enjoyed it.”

Well, that cleared everything up.

“What?” Jack’s confusion was evident.

“Killing that guy. I enjoyed it.”

There was a shocked silence.

“No you didn’t.”

“Well, I did in my dream.”

“Ianto, it was just a dream.”

“No, it was more like a memory.” Ianto pulled his arm from Jack’s grasp and pulled open the door.

Jack stared after him for a moment and then followed.

*~*~*~*

At the Hub Ianto searched through the archive database for anything that had been catalogued in the missing two days. Three items.

“I don’t believe it.”

“What?” Jack leant over Ianto and read the screen. “Adam? What the fuck?”

“I don’t know. But he brought that item in yesterday.”

They shared a look and turned back to the screen.

“Check the personnel files.”

Ianto quickly opened the programme and searched for Adam. Nothing.

“No one called Adam has ever worked here. Ever. Would you recruit someone so easily?”

“No, never,” Jack said with a shake of his head. “None of this makes any sense.”

Ianto stood quickly and ran to grab his diary, he still kept it out of habit but his entries were becoming few and far between.

He quickly turned to yesterday’s date. There was an entry. As he read it, his heart began to thud and he hurried back to Jack.

“Listen to this. ‘Do not remember. You all forgot for a reason. It wasn’t you.’ ” He flung the diary at a startled Jack and ran to Tosh’s computer, finding the files for the CCTV of the attack in Bute Park quickly.

“Ianto,” Jack said warningly. He didn’t think Ianto should be looking at footage of the attack. It would only make things worse.

“It’s ok. I just…” He went silent as he played the CCTV on fast forward, eyes darting to follow the action. His brow furrowed and then a look of mingled confusion and relief crossing his face.

“Ianto?”

“That’s…that’s not me.”

“What?!” Jack moved to stand behind Ianto and peered over his shoulder at the stilled CCTV image.

It was a little grainy and the colours were a bit dull in the night dark. But a streetlamp illuminated the scene enough. The young man, Paul, had his hands thrown in front of his face, half turned away from the threat of the wolf as he struggled to get away from the huge animal. The wolf itself, was mid leap through the air, pouncing on it’s victim, teeth bared.

It was terrifying.

Jack looked away, focusing his attention on Ianto instead.

“How do you know?”

“My furry friend is black.”

Jack looked back at the image.

The wolf on the CCTV had a light brown coat with patches of cream. It wasn’t Ianto.

“So…who is that?”

Ianto shook his head.

“I don’t know.”


End file.
